Mission statement: On this blog we explore why homeschooling can be a better option for children and families than a traditional classroom setting. We'll also explore homeschooling issues in general, educational thoughts, family issues, and some other random stuff.

----------Last week a report was released estimating that 47% of Detroiters are functionally illiterate, meaning that they cannot read. Of the 200,000 Detroit adults who are functionally illiterate*, half of them have a high school diploma or a GED. The remaining 100,000 of these functionally illiterate adults (age 25 and older) lack a high school diploma or GED, yet most of them attended Detroit public schools through primary school, where basic reading was supposed to have been taught. So effectively, there are 200,000 adults in Detroit who have been failed by public education.

I wonder how many public education advocates saw this report as an opportunity to demand more money for public education as opposed to considering for a second that the public education model is destroying lives. Detroit, once a hub of innovation, production and prosperity has turned into the poster child for urban decay. Detroit was the richest city in the nation as of 1960, but by 2007 the U.S. Census Bureau declared that Detroit had more people living below poverty level (32.5%) than any other city in the country. In the past decade alone the city has lost 25% of its population. Clearly there’s something very wrong going on in Detroit, and that thing is government. Government policies in Detroit have assaulted business, encouraged sloth, taken money out of the real economy and lavished that money on special interests and public employees while ignoring the rapidly descending quality of life. It also created an education system that is pathetic even by public education standards.
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